Banks are taking legal action against 15 homeowners a day in their attempt to solve the mortgage crisis.

As the loans scandal continues to spiral out of control, the Central Bank detailed how a fifth of householders are struggling with their mortgages.

Almost 100,000 of those are more than 90 days behind on payments, while 59,944 are a year in debt.

As figures showed 22.5% of mortgages are in arrears for more than two years, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore insisted the Government is doing everything it can to solve the crisis.

He said: “Clearly those who are in longer-term arrears are in a difficult situation.

“It’s going to take a greater degree of effort for those arrears problems to be resolved but we are making progress on it.” The figures also show the attempts of the banks to solve the crisis, with institutions initiating 1,830 legal proceedings against homeowners from June to September.

The favoured solution was to offer the householder a split mortgage but it still only accounted for 1.4% given by the banks.

Sinn Fein’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said Government must take a more hands-on approach to the problem.

He said: “We are now six years into the mortgage crisis. This is an issue deeply hurting the economy.

“The Government needs to get their head in the game on this issue – they must force the banks to deal responsibly with these issues.”

There were 80,555 residential mortgage accounts classified as restructured at the end of September – a quarter-on-quarter increase of 1.5%. The Central Bank said 78.9% of those accounts were deemed to be meeting the terms of restructured arrangements.